TAX & BENEFITS
By affecting where and how we live, learn, work, consume, and save, America’s tax and benefit systems shape economic opportunity and security. Our work on taxes and benefits emphasizes detailed research-based ideas for raising revenues while improving and establishing new benefit systems that address the changing and complex needs of governments, families, and communities.
What’s New
REPORT | February 2019Structurally Unsound: The Impact of Using Block Grants to Fund Economic Security Programs
This analysis finds that block grants (characterized by capped amounts of federal funding to states and other entities paired with expansive flexibility for how the funds are spent) are fundamentally ill-equipped to support basic living standards compared to other structures, especially those that meaningfully guarantee access to adequate benefits or services. Specifically, block grants struggle to respond to need, can be less accountable to program goals and to the people who participate in the program, and can exacerbate inequities–especially racial inequities.
Cara Brumfield, Funke Aderonmu, Kali Grant, Aileen Carr, Indivar Dutta-Gupta, Isabella Camacho-Craft, Doug Steiger & Peter Edelman
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Unworkable & Unwise: Conditioning Access to Programs that Ensure a Basic Foundation for Families on Work Requirements
This working paper outlines the ramifications of taking away Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), and housing assistance from those who do not document meeting new work and community engagement requirements. The paper underscores how proposals that take away basic assistance from people who don’t meet work requirements are ill-informed, ineffective, inefficient, and inequitable, while alternative policies would produce far better outcomes.
Kali Grant, Funke Aderonmu, Sophie Khan, Kaustubh Chahande, Casey Goldvale, Indivar Dutta-Gupta, Aileen Carr & Doug Steiger
Domestic Violence & Sexual Assault
The Difference Between Surviving and Not Surviving: Public Benefits Programs and Sexual Violence Victims’ Economic Security
This new report from the National Resource Center on Domestic Violence along with the Georgetown Center on Poverty & Inequality highlights the urgency of strengthening public benefits policies at the state and federal levels so that they better meet the needs of people facing domestic violence and sexual assault.
Strengthening Unemployment Protections in America
In partnership with the Center for American Progress (CAP) and National Employment Law Project (NELP), the center released a report on modernizing unemployment insurance for a 21st century economy and establishing a new Jobseeker’s Allowance.
A Plan to Improve Unemployment Protections in America
This document succinctly summarizes recommendations laid out in the 2016 CAP, GCPI, and NELP report, “Strengthening Unemployment Protections in America.”
Strengthening Unemployment Protections in America: Intro & Summary
Summary of the 2016 CAP, GCPI, and NELP report, “Strengthening Unemployment Protections in America,” on modernizing unemployment insurance for a 21st century economy and establishing a new Jobseeker’s Allowance.
Where States Are and Where They Should Be on Unemployment Protections
CAP, NELP, and GCPI identify the main challenges facing states’ unemployment insurance (UI) programs; provide recent state-level data; and recommend steps that states can take to substantially strengthen their UI programs.
Strengthening Unemployment Protections in America: A Discussion
Rep. Sandy Levin (D-MI) and White House Council of Economic Advisers Chairman Jason Furman explain the need for unemployment insurance (UI) reform. Co-Executive Director Indivar Dutta-Gupta served on a panel of experts to debate UI and the Jobseeker’s Allowance (JSA).
Wall Street Journal article feature: “Should an Unemployed Uber Driver Be Eligible for a “Job Seeker’s Allowance?”
The Georgetown Center on Poverty and Inequality’s report on Job Seeker’s Allowance is referenced in identifying the main challenges facing unemployed Uber drivers eligibility for job seeker’s allowances.
Unemployment Insurance Modernization and Eligibility
Updated, independent analysis from the Urban Institute commissioned by the center, CAP, and NELP—which shows that just three of the center’s proposed reforms would significantly increase the share of newly unemployed workers who are protected by UI.
Security & Stability: Paid Family and Medical Leave and its Importance to People with Disabilities and their Families
This report by The Arc and GCPI is the first to contribute an overview of the disability angle on paid leave. The findings highlight why a comprehensive, national paid leave program is needed in the U.S. for all workers, including people with disabilities and their families. We also propose that a national paid leave approach should be accessible to all working people, including those with disabilities and their families.
Kali Grant, T.J. Sutcliffe, Indivar Dutta-Gupta, & Casey Goldvale
Comments on Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) Reauthorization
The center submitted comments on the discussion draft of the Temporary Assistance for Needy Families (TANF) reauthorization bill to the U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Ways and Means Subcommittee on Human.
TANF’s not all right
Though TANF seemed promising to some in its first four years, evidence from the last 15 raises alarms and suggests a need for new strategies to help disadvantaged families.
Poverty and Inequality in America: Why We Should Care and What We Should Do
Two-generation approaches to poverty reduction and the Earned Income Tax Credit.
